best. business. trip. ever! a really boring mind locked blow by blow by kitty joe

16th or 17th of december?
unsure of the date.
made it through work with minimal required tie up for the walking tornado. the boss despaired, "i'm scared! i can't do this without you!"
and jade held me and begged me to come home.

ah! here i decided to make a list to blow through my impressions without beleaguering myself with transitions and complete thoughts. but i can't ever tell a concise story, can i?
the boss dropped me off thanking me. "it's true what you've said. it's been a year of incredible accomplishments! have a great christmas.....uh...i didn't have time to get you a gift." at this i laughed. we don't do that!

once free and inside my apartment i felt three distinct states of being wash over me. first i became excited, no, giddy with the thought of the extraordinary trip i was about to take. an unknown piece of my world expanded, if only briefly and superficially, within the bubble of the ritz carlton. but still--the palace!? come on! the persian gulf! qatar! layover in dubai! i will, by hook or by crook, swim in the sea between saudi arabia and iran!

in a moment of splurge, i ordered chinese food. no time to cook and the phone conversation i had with the airline (emirates) earlier was ridiculous. i had requested a vegetarian meal and he said there would be no veg meal option because there would be no meal service at all. wait. what?! on a jet blue flight for five hours, i understand. i pack my burrito and they shower me with chips and cookies.
but twelve and a half hours with no meal?! i was shocked.
i ordered chinese food.
and since i'd eaten my customary day ration of peanut butter toast at 6:30am, it being twelve hours later, i was ravenous. but a whole order of sesame noodles on an empty stomach? perhaps not the wisest...

excitement was replaced with moaning gluttony. and then a sudden coma. surely i couldn't fly to the middle east tonight. how would i keep my eyes open another minute?

and then my jade came home. i was so grateful for the chance to say goodbye (it had been unclear if he would make it home in time from work). so grateful for a man to be sad that i was leaving , to miss me already, but to also feel excitement for what i would see.
this had not formerly been the case with others.
but jade, he carried my suitcase to the car and sent me off with big love. actually, it was his suitcase. ah, how many suitcase sets have i lost to the bedbugs? two sets, to be presise. enough. not that i'm bitter.

and so, i rock the peterbilt duffle. got a problem with that? talk to the palace. i am their guest. it said so in my 'welcome to doha' packet.

so to the airport i go. 25 degrees and i only wear a blouse because hello? car service both ways and 80 degree destination. i feel wrapped in luxury. or unwrapped by luxury.

i arrive at jfk a little less than 90 minutes before my flight. some people advised 3 hours, some 2. but the gentleman (and now i use that term loosely, and wonder why i trusted a man who tried to tell me we'd be sent for 12.5 hours with no food). he told me if i checked in online, i only needed 90 minutes. the emirates website went so far as to suggest 60. so it was without urgencey that i made my way to the security line. oh, that was naive. the eight lines of people who should have (if we were, for example, in the jet blue terminal) been routed into eight lines of xray machines. instead, there were two lines and a nightmare merge reminicent of L.A. rush house and enough road rage to start a war.

we stood in mosh pit like conditions, growling at each other, each trying to extract pity and perhaps advance our place in 'line', with fears of missing our flights. more terrifying to instead realize were were all fucked. seeing the monitors flashing 'dubai: last call', and having finally swallowed the guilt of others excuses, i pushed past the man with no ear, the toddler insistantly performing the fake cry and the unfortunate chap whose 'british sensibilities' were offended, i finally emerged panting from the xray machine, running to the gate, shoelaces clicking behind me, belt hanging loose around my neck, laptop haphazardly slung under one armpit, clear toiletry bag under the other, open peterbilt duffle covered with cat hair, passport and boarding pass pinched between my teeth. classy. but i got on that damn plane.

i was seated with peggy, who i will work with for the next week. i had earlier grumpily shot down jade's optimistic flight consolations. "i don't need any new friends!" i feared discofort, awkward interactions, but instead we hit it off beautifully, feeling quite a kinshop of experiences and values.
and the flight, by the way, did include meals. three of them. of course, mine being vegetarian. at the check in counter, when i related my phone experience, the counter girl was shocked. "you should file a complaint!" and as much of a fan of our friend blue, i'm sorry to say that emirates kicked jetblue's ass. i spent the first hour flipping through the touch screen of hundreds of current, classic, foreign movies, tv series, make your own music playlists, podcasts, computer cord, power plug ins, usb ports, blankets, little purse full of sox and face masks and funny colorful 'do not disturb' style stickers which i was temped to stick to my forehead. hot towels, hot meals, free wine. in economy class. i watched 3 moves, 4 episodes of 'flight of the conchords', a documentary of frank lloyd wright, and still slept like a baby. happy.

come clean, come clean, i know that you dream...

the above title, appropriately, refers to a culture club lyric. we're talking after the fall from grace, post heroin boy george. but boy did i love that song--blasted it in the car till the cows in the pastures paused mid fly-swat to glare as i drove by. oh, but wait. it was 1987 (?) so it was my mom doing the driving. and the blasting of boy george.

but nevertheless, there's something i've been hiding from you. something that is so simultaneously jump up and down exciting but then bury your head under a pillow humiliating that i've totally clammed up. see i grew up 100% positive that every single member of my family was reading my journal--my diary, if you will.

certain events tipped me off to this fact, like its constant movement from the place i would meticulously hide it. but of course then paranoia spun out of control and who knows anymore. i am completely open to the suggestion that no one actually ever tampered with my secret tomes, covered as they were in pathetic locks you could pick with a bobby pin (i know, because i could never keep track of those keys!) and dried pools of red candle wax, but still this paranoia completely affected me. i mean, the story about the doll that was supposed to urinate but because of some mysterious, ahem, blockage, refused to perform, thus brought me to tears was totally riveting--just what an evil family member would be desperate to come across on the sly. because surely they didn't have to already hear me crying about it all day.

gripped with this fear of exposure (i know, i know, so now i post my journal online. totally makes sense), with no faith in the privacy of my journal, i went to work cataloging the boring details of my days, leaving cryptic hints that only i could pick up on regarding anything that i secretly felt and couldn't share. this is something i still have a hard time with, especially now that my diary of sorts is posted for all to see. that brings its own issues of censorship and family calling you up to say that you got it all wrong. people threatening that i'll never get a job because google will bring up all this stupid drivel. but still i continued writing then, just as i continue now. because i'm compelled to. because it's my therapy. because i have to.

so the ridiculous journals pile up until there's tubs of them. and what is to be done with them? readings over a bowl of cereal? shabby chic end tables? i've employed both of these habits. but mostly they just sit and ferment like old forgotten wine--awash in denial, boredom, excitement, anger, and the occasional true secret.

enter sarah brown. sarah had this genius idea that it could be funny to sit around at a bar (the alchohol helps with the courage!) listening to other people read from their old diaries. but in order not to be super boring, the entries read must induce the reader to cringe. hence the name of the series. it happens in brooklyn on the first wednesday of every month and my god! it's hilarious.

and cathartic.
and addictive.

when sarah decided to publish a book of such embarrassing entries i was all about it, flooding her inbox with scanned submissions. because if there's something i have a lot of, it's embarrassing journal entries. why not put them to work? make people laugh. be able to laugh at myself.

i didn't figure i even had to worry about being selected, considering heather of the 2 million readers a month dooce fame put out a call for submissions. when i heard back from sarah that she wanted to use THREE of my entries, i panicked a little bit, but didn't back out. doubted my sanity, yes. i know, it makes a lot of sense. girl, terrified that people will read her journal, "grows up" (had to put that in quotes because, um...) and publishes them in a book sold in all barnes and nobles across the country. brilliant. so i thought, i just won't tell my blog. then no one will notice. and perhaps they won't. but come on--what is the point of this damn blog if i can't scream at the top of my lungs into it: SOMETHING I WROTE IS PUBLISHED! IN A BOOK. A REAL BOOK! nevermind that it's been selected because it's really, really bad. just nevermind that.

the bottom line is, the only people i don't want reading this book is my parents. and maybe my uncle because he's my dad's twin. i may be making light of this book and all, but it ain't g rated. it took me a long time to really free myself to write with a bit of abandon, and since those are the entries selected, i was a bit older than most of the other folks in the book i think. and that's just too much for me or my parents to handle. nor should they have to. can you guys appreciate that and help me out with this? no mom, no dad, no uncle allan. aunts--don't go out of your way, but not forbidden. rule of thumb--family members, don't talk about this. practice all that denial we're all so good at. cheers.

oh, and additionally, don't bother asking my polite, foreign boyfriend how he feels about this blatant show of exhibitionism--he's far from impressed or amused.

okay, i'm officially extremely uncomfortable. but i totally believe in the pure humor of this book and i'm proud to be a part of it. i'm still waiting impatiently for my copy to arrive in the mail. in the meantime, there's this handy little widget at the top of my blog that looks like the cringe book. if you click on it, it gives a sneak peak into the layout, intro, design of the book. minus the entries. the reason i gave in and posted about this is yesterday (the day the book was released) when i saw a piece of my writing that had been used in the opening pages (page9!), i actually got choked up and held back tears of excitement. thank you, sarah, for including me in this silly bit of fun. and huge congrats.

and for the locals...
next wednesday, yes, a week from this very day, there will be a book release party/reading. friends are welcome. oh, and sarah's blog is here
not only is she a great idea maker. she's a gifted writer too. yay for sarah!
(cringe photos by sarah brown too!)